Cocktail Totally Explained

Everything about Cocktail totally explained

A cocktail is a style of mixed drink. Originally a mixture of distilled spirits, sugar, water, and bitters, the word has gradually come to mean almost any mixed drink containing alcohol. A cocktail today usually contains one or more types of liquor and flavorings and one or more liqueurs, fruit juices, sugar, honey, water, ice, soda, milk, cream, herbs, bitters, etc.
Until the 1970s, cocktails were made predominantly with gin, whiskey or rum, and less commonly vodka. From the 1970s on, the popularity of vodka increased dramatically, and by the 1980s it was the predominant base for mixed drinks. Many cocktails traditionally made with gin, such as the gimlet, or the martini, may now be served by default with vodka.

History

The earliest known printed use of the word "cocktail," as originally determined by David Wondrich in October 2005, was from "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803, p [2]:
"11. Drank a glass of cocktail — excellent for the head ... Call'd at the Doct's. found Burnham — he looked very wise — drank another glass of cocktail." The second earliest and officially recognised known printed use of the word "cocktail" (and the most well-known) was in the May 13 1806 edition of the Balance and Columbian Repository, a publication in Hudson, New York, where the paper provided the following answer to what a cocktail was: ť "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it's vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else."

The Sazerac, which is one of the oldest known cocktails, dates back as far as the 1850s
   The first publication of a bartenders' guide which included cocktail recipes was in 1862: How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant's Companion, by "Professor" Jerry Thomas. In addition to listings of recipes for Punches, Sours, Slings, Cobblers, Shrubs, Toddies, Flips, and a variety of other types of mixed drinks were 10 recipes for drinks referred to as "Cocktails". A key ingredient which differentiated "cocktails" from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters as an ingredient, although it isn't to be seen in very many modern cocktail recipes.
   The first "cocktail party" ever thrown was allegedly by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1917. Mrs. Walsh invited 50 guests to her mansion at noon on a Sunday. The party lasted one hour, until lunch was served at 1pm. The site of the first cocktail party still stands. In 1924 the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis bought the Walsh mansion at 4510 Lindell Blvd., and it has served as the local archbishop's residence ever since. During Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933), when the sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal, cocktails were still consumed illegally in establishments known as speakeasies. The quality of the alcohol available was far lower than was previously used, and bartenders generally put forth less effort in preparing the cocktails.
The beverage was named for a mixed breed horse, known as a "cock-tail" as the beverage, like the horse, was neither strictly spirit nor wine — it was a mixed breed.
After cokstele or cock-stick, a type of weighted stick used for throwing at cocks as a sport. See Cock throwing.
The word could also be a distortion of Latin [aqua] decocta, meaning "distilled water".
In the village of Elmsford in Westchester County, New York a local bar ran out of stirrers and resorted to use a cock's tail feathers to stir the drink.
In the book, Under the Mountain, by Margaret Robson, published in 1958, the author states, "James Fenimore Cooper stayed (at Hustler's Tavern) in Lewiston, New York in 1821 while writing The Spy. Cooper used the owners, Thomas and Catherine Hustler in his story as the models for Sergeant Hollister and Betty Flanigan. According to Cooper, it was Catherine Hustler who invented the gin cocktail, stirring it with a feather from a stuffed rooster's tail." Catherine Hustler described her drink by saying, "it warms both the soul and body and is fit to be put in a vessel of diamonds." Hustler's Tavern, which stood at the northeast corner of 8th and Center Streets in Lewiston, NY, is no longer standing.
Cocktail personalities

Living

Daniel Rogers - Founder of 5 Senses Cocktail Course, Sydney Australia. Website: http://www.developmentinmotion.com.au
Adam Freeth - Founder of Shaker BarSchools, UK and South Africa. Author of 'Professional Bartending'. Website: http://www.shaker-uk.com/
Nick Mautone - Author of "Raising the Bar; Better Drinks Better Entertaining". Beverage Expert and food service consultant, former Managing Partner of Gramercy Tavern, NYC and partner in Trina Lounge in Fort Lauderdale.
Simon Difford — UK drinks expert and author of 'sauceguide to cocktails' and 'diffordsguide to cocktails', now in its 7th edition.
Wayne Curtis — rum expert and author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in 10 Cocktails
Dale "King Cocktail" DeGroff — author of The Craft of the Cocktail and bartender at New York's famous Rainbow Room. Founder and current president of The Museum of the American Cocktail. Website: http://www.kingcocktail.com/
Eric Felten - Author of How’s Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal also titled How’s Your Drink? which appears on Saturdays
Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh — author of Vintage Spirit and Forgotten Cocktails, proprietor of CocktailDB.com, founding member and curator of The Museum of the American Cocktail
Joe Gilmore — one of the longest running Head Barmen at The Savoy Hotel's American Bar and inventor of many cocktails, including several for Winston Churchill
Robert "Drinkboy" Hess — prominent cocktail authority and proprietor of DrinkBoy.com. Founder and current secretary of The Museum of the American Cocktail
Gary and Mardee Regan — creators of Regan’s Bitters, authors of many books including The Joy of Mixology and New Classic Cocktails, founding members of The Museum of the American Cocktail
Audrey Saunders — former bartender at Bemelmans Bar (New York City), proprietor of the Pegu Club (New York City), prominent mixologist
David Wondrich — author of Esquire Drinks and founding member of The Museum of the American Cocktail
Stephen Kittredge Cunningham — author of The Bartender's Black Book now in its 8th edition.
Charles Schumann - author of America Bar
A.J. Rathbun - Seattle-based mixologist, and author of "Party Drinks!" and "Good Spirits"
Sebastian Reaburn-prominent cocktail authority,Historian and proprietor of 1806. www.1806.com.au and www.mixologymanagement.com
Paulo Ramos- Founder of cocktail academy portugal, one of the first to introduce freestyle bartending in europe. www.ramoscocktailacademy.com
Javier Lauria - Classic Argentinian Bartender - Promoter of "High Style Cocktails"
Stefanie Marco - former Ambassador for Allied Domecq Spirits, bartender Soho and Tribeca Grand in NYC, pioneer of Stirrings Better Cocktails brands, prominent mixologist
Ryan D. Mayer - Columnist "Sense of Spirit" History and Culture behind famous New Orleans Cocktails, credits in "Where Y'at Magazine" and "Delectable Magazine,"
Deceased

Jerry Thomas — author of one of the earliest cocktail books, How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon Vivant's Companion (1862), and The Bar-Tender's Guide, or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks (1887)
David A. Embury — an attorney and author of The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948), a classic cocktail book and one of the first to be a serious study of the art
Harry Craddock — bartender at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel, London during Prohibition and author of "The Savoy Cocktail Book" published in 1930
Derivative uses
The word "cocktail" is sometimes used figuratively for a mixture of liquids or other substances that are not necessarily fit for consumption. For example, the usage of such a word could be as follows: "120 years of industry have dosed the area's soil with a noxious cocktail of heavy metals and chemical contaminants".

Further Information
Get more info on 'Cocktail'.

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